Dear Editor:

I am writing to share a story that happened on Aug. 4, 2016. It all started when a man named Joe sheepishly walked into the Whitney’s service department asking for help to repair his very old and tired car.

Joe informed us that another customer and friend of his had recommended he come down and talk to us.

“I don’t know if you’ll even work on a car like this, and I don’t have a lot of money,” he said.

Then, he quickly got a big smile on his face when we informed him that a friend of his is a friend of ours and we would see what we could do to get his car going for him.

Upon looking at the vehicle, we found that it had a lot of problems in addition to the wheel bearing concern that Joe mentioned when he brought it in, including a very serious fuel leak. It was also very apparent that everything Joe owned was in the car, and he told us all about where he had been staying and how had been living, which was pretty much out of his car.

While he appeared to be down on his luck, he was so positive, friendly and very gracious that we were working on his car for him.

Then something amazing happened.

While I was home for lunch, my coworker called and informed me that his friend and our customer had called and asked us to stop working on the car. The reason being that she was coming down here to buy Joe another vehicle that was in much better shape than his car which was basically worn out and in need of many other repairs in addition to the minor bandage we were going to put on it to get him by for a while.

However, Joe still wanted his car to be fixed to make sure it was in good working condition should it ever be driven by someone else, and he at first refused to let her help him like that.

Up ‘til now, she had only given him some odd jobs to help him earn a little extra money here and there. Joe and the entire staff at Whitney’s were shocked that she was going to do something of this magnitude to help him out. But Joe finally agreed to let her help him and they quickly picked out a very nice usable vehicle for him to drive away in.

The look on Joe’s face was priceless when he got in that vehicle and started it up, as was the pride we could see in his friends that had done this for him. I often see stories of this nature on the news or the web, and as I had never really witnessed something like this first hand, to see this woman offer this man a life-changing help, knowing full well that he had nothing to pay her back other than gratitude and a smile. This was an amazing experience for all of here at Whitney’s.

And while this woman specifically asked me to leave her name out of the story as she wanted no publicity for her random act of kindness and generosity, she agreed to let me share this heartwarming story with all of you. I hope it makes you feel as good as it did for all of us, and we would like to send our thanks to our friend and customer for making us part of this amazing experience —you know who you are.

Thank you.

Mike Amlin

Montesano